This article is based on a post from now discontinued support forum. It is still available here.

Mondor’s Currency Rates Web API has one unique feature – rechargeable access keys. You can buy them as any other keys, and sometimes they are cheaper, but they can be used for a sole purpose of recharging another key of the same type.

Imagine, that you have successfully applied our currency conversion service in your application. Now your application is installed in many different places and your users expect it to work 24/7. Redeploying application just because you have to replace API key is a bad option.

Recharge key allows you to prolong the life of existing key without touching your application. And here is how it works:

Once you acquired your normal key, it is not active until the very first use. I.e. - if it is a monthly key, the month will start when you will make a first call, not when you've purchased the key. However, the key will expire - one way or another. Recharge key can extend the expiration date with a new term.For keys with no expiration day, i.e. the ones that have the total amount of calls to make, recharge keys add more calls.

Recharge through API call

There is a web method of the XML Web Service called UpgradeAccessCode. It accepts two parameters - Old Code and New Code. The Old Code is the long code of your original access code. The New Code is the same long code but of your recharge key. Call this method with these two parameters and check how it affected your existing code.

Important facts

Recharging the original key with the total (i.e. not per day) limit does not substitute the limit to the original one, but adds to it. So, if you had 1K key and had only 100 calls left when you've decided to upgrade, after upgrade you will have 1100 calls left.

Recharging the key with expiration time will add new period to your key. That is - if you had one month left from your annual key and decided to upgrade, you will have 13 months left. So you shouldn’t leave it for the last minute.

You can upgrade even expired keys. The call-limited keys will have their limits raised from 0, the date-limited keys will start the new period from the moment of upgrade.

When you're using recharge key, you do not change your configuration. That is - you are using your old access code that you've purchased in the beginning. Recharge key can be used only once and has no expiration.

Recharge through special web page

After you acquire your recharge key, you need to activate it. You don’t have to write code to do that.The manual key activation is through the special web page. You will need to input the original access code and the new upgrade code, and push the button. That's it, the original code is recharged.

Related posts

New feature: Access SubscriptionTo ensure uninterruptable service to our corporate customers, as well as anyone who doesn’t want to ...Backup ServersTo minimize the downtime we’ve established a backup server for the currency rates API. Should you ex...